Operational planning and design of market-based virtual power plant with high penetration of renewable energy sources

Abstract

Renewable energy sources are becoming more prevalent as a source of clean energy, and their integration into the power industry is speeding up. The fundamental reason for this is the growing global concern about climate change. However, the weather-dependent and uncertain nature of renewable generation raise questions about grid security particularly, when photovoltaics (PVs) and wind turbines (WTs) technologies are used. The incorporation of energy storage systems (ESS) in a virtual power plant (VPP) environment could compensate for the renewable generation's uncertainty. Where a VPP is a new concept that combines dispatchable and non-dispatchable energy sources, electrical loads, and energy storage units, enabling individual energy producers to participate in the electricity market. In this study, a market-based-VPP’s operational planning and design model is presented to assess the optimal active power dispatch of (WT, PV, and ESS) operating in the day-ahead electricity market to maximize social welfare (SW) considering the uncertainties associated with wind speed, solar irritation, and load demand. The Scenario-tree technique is applied to model the uncertainties of renewable energy sources and load demand. The proposed model performance is validated by simulation studies on a 16-bus UK generic distribution system (UKGDS). According to the simulation results, renewable energy sources and energy storage systems dispatched optimally active power to satisfy the load demand in the most efficient way possible.